• dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    NASA flies roughly 3 missions per year. DoD/DoW launches around 12 missions per year. NRO launches around 5 per year. That is a total of around 20 government missions per year. SpaceX launches roughly 150 missions per year, so removing state funding would only take out about 13% of their $18 billion annual revenue. 100 of those launches are Starlink, which gets funded by both commercial, private users, and government users.

    • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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      13 days ago

      That 18 billion in revenue already results in an operating loss of 4 billion a year. So its a little odd to hear you act like “only” losing another 13% is insignificant since it would increase their loss by about 30%.

      Also, that is assuming that all launches cost the same, which is probably not the case at all. The NASA launches are likely considerably more costly than Starlink launches.